>> Saturday, July 29, 2006

It looks like the clouds that rolled in prevented us from seeing severe weather problems this afternoon. Instead, we saw an area of light to moderate rain shift through parts of Cleveland, Gaston, York, Mecklenburg, and Union counties. The severe weather problems are occurring to our south and east, where the sun remained out longer today.

Lots of heat coming early in the week. Mid to even upper 90s a good bet beginning Monday and lasting through at least mid-week. No relief in sight until a cold front nears us late in the week and next weekend and gives us good shower and thunderstorm chances.

Tropics....The tropical wave out in the Atlantic has lost most of its shower and thunderstorm activity today, so it looks like any development will be very slow to occur.

The wave in the Caribbean is still experiencing hostile upper level winds, so no immediate development is likely there as well. However, if that tropical wave gets into the Gulf next week, it could possibly develop into something. So, we will keep watching all of this....

Mid level vortex (disturbance) moving across western North Carolina as I am typing this. If you look at a regional radar loop, the vortex can clearly be seen dropping from western North Carolina into western South Carolina in a southeastward fashion.

I am really beginning to think that the worst severe weather threat will be just east of the viewing area. However, let's not let our guard dows just yet. But, I just wanted to make a quick post and say that things at this point look a little less favorable for severe weather over our area than it looked this morning....

We are indeed seeing a good amount of sunshine this morning. An upper level disturbance is approaching us from the west as well. The short-range computer models had a wide array of solutions in the handling of the disturbance last night, but things seem to be coming together a bit better now.

It looks like we will see showers and storms fire around the area as the afternoon progresses, especially from mid-afternoon on. The disturbance moving in is actually a relatively strong one, considering the time of year. Decent wind fields will be in place, and the atmosphere should be pretty moist and unstable. So, all in all, I think the probability of some severe weather occurring somewhere around our area is fairly high.

By the way, here is the disturbance I am talking about. This is the 500mb chart from the 6z run of the NAM valid at 2pm today. Notice the area near the Tennessee/North Carolina state line. That is a lobe of vorticity. In simpler terms, we just call that an upper level disturbance.

The 700mb winds are stronger today than what we have seen recently, so the storms should actually move along at a decent clip. So, hopefully flooding won't be a big issue, but we could certainly still use all of the rain we can get.

So, all in all, things seem to be pointing to some active weather this afternoon into parts of the evening hours. Stay tuned to News 14 Carolina for all of the latest weather information. Tara will hold down the fort through a good chuck of the afternoon, and I will be on the air by 4-5pm...

>> Friday, July 28, 2006

My apologies for not having posted so far this week. Had some computer issues earlier in the week, and I did the nasty turn-around last night and this morning. Due to scheduling issues that could not be avoided, I was in the evening shift last night, and now I am here for the early morning shift this morning. Quick turn-around, but that's how it goes. I will survive.

At any rate, I don't know about you, but I have about had all of the heat and humidity I need this year. It has not been anything abnormal, but summertime heat and humidity is definitely my least favorite type of weather. I am ready for Fall with some crisp nights and college football season!

Rather oppressive out there today with highs in the mid to upper 90s, heat index values exceeding 100 at times, and just a small chance for an isolated storm. Overnight, we will maintain the chance for an isolated storm with lows in the low to mid 70s.

A little better shot at scattered storms Saturday as a disturbance passes through, and it looks like we will see at least a few showers and storms Sunday.

Monday and Tuesday look primarily dry with highs back in the mid 90s.

Tropics...A tropical wave is moving through the Caribbean, but it is getting torn apart by hostile upper-level winds. We will see if those winds relax as the system approaches the Gulf.

Very healthy looking tropical wave out in the Atlantic. I think this will be our next tropical system, probably over the weekend if everything plays out in the system's favor.

>> Sunday, July 23, 2006

A lot was going on behind the scenes here at News 14 Carolina last night as we were bringing you severe weather coverage. First of all, it was quite impressive to watch the complex of storms move into the heart of Charlotte from our Y camera. Quite ominous to watch the sky scrapers disappear as the storm descended on the area in the midst of strobe light-like lightning.

We have a large window in our weather office. The curtain was down as the storm moved in, but I noticed I could here the wind whistling at the window while I was talking on the air. First time I have heard that since I came to News 14. So, at the next opportunity, I walked over to one of our doors and took a look out....I estimate the wind had to be gusting at least 50-60mph. At that point, we took one power hit. I was then back on the air broadcasting live when we took a much more substantial power hit...this one knocked out the Y cam.

Very soon after that, there was a very distinct smell of something burning inside the building....something of an electrical nature burning. There was some concern that there was actually a fire inside the building....in fact, it appears some fire alarms were triggered on the other side of the building from News 14. So, we were all evaluating things to make sure there was not an actual fire in the building, all the while, severe weather coverage continued.

Several rook leaks developed, and the wind actually blew hard enough to blow a good deal of water under a door and into one of our hallways and puddle it up. The basement had some flooding issues as well.

Ever since that power hit, we were actually running off of our back-up power supply. Many thanks to Jim Travers, our Operations Manager, for coming in, checking everything out, and getting us back on regular power. Turns out we were probably less than 5 minutes from the back-up power supply running out.

I want you to know, in spite of several distractions, everyone here remained focused on the task at hand....walking you through the storms and providing you with timely information. Everyone here did an excellent job of making my job easy. Many thanks from me.

Turns out, our building took a lightning strike. Lightning traveled down into a circuit box, blew open the door, and exploded a bunch of stuff (notice the technical term there) all over the room. That was the source of the burning smell.

At any rate, thank you to all of you for trusting us to bring you timely weather information. It is not a priviledge we take lightly, and for those of us in the weather department, it is our chief committment to you.

Cold front is gradually shifting through the area while weakening. We will likely see some scattered showers and storms around the viewing area this evening, and it is possible a couple of storms could be strong to severe. However, unlike yesterday, these showers and storms should fade away rather quickly after sunset.

Looks like we will have a lot of low level moisture around early next work week. So, as we get into the afternoon and early evening hours, there will probably be a good number of scattered showers and storms. Wednesday and Thursday will probably feature fewer afternoon storms, but better chances return by Friday and the weekend.

Tropics...We are still watching an area of disturbed weather in the southwest Gulf of Mexico this evening. If necessary, a recon plane will head into that area tomorrow. However, at the moment, it looks very disorganized.

I will post a little later on about some of the activity we had inside the building here at News 14 last night....